Emphasizing Oklahoma as the underdog is not how coach Bob Stoops is gearing up his team for its Allstate Sugar Bowl showdown Thursday against SEC powerhouse Alabama.

He made that quite clear in his final pregame press conference on New Year's Day.

"Not at a place like Oklahoma. I don't know how to do that, to be quite honest," Stoops said. "That's not one of our motivational methods. So we're about what do we do right, how do we do things the right way to give ourselves an opportunity to win.

"The other stuff I can't say that somewhere in the back of some kids' minds they might not have heard something one too many times and it triggers something. But it's not a card that I play."

Stoops and Saban's friendship extends back to their football days in the Midwest. Saban was an Ohio State assistant from 1980-81 and then Michigan State coach from 1983-87, and he recruited in the Stoops hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, where Bob's father, Ron, was defensive coordinator at Cardinal Mooney High School.

Stoops took a little time Wednesday to recall Saban's visits to the Stoops household.

"It was very common for my father to have different coaches stop by the home and eat dinner with us in our little bitty house, fit one more person in," Stoops said. "He knew Coach Saban quite well, as did my uncle Bob, who I'm named after ... Coach Saban would stop in and either have a game of gin or have some fun with (us). And then I remember he and his wife Terry invited my family over after a Michigan State-Iowa game.... In the last several years we've gotten together different times just to share ideas on defending people or that kind of thing."

Now Saban praised the Oklahoma tradition from the opposing side, as the Crimson Tide and Sooners make final preparations for their matchup Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

"The important thing about a Bowl game is all about mindset," Saban said. "So how your team sort of resets their mindset is really important to how a team's going to prepare, how they're going to focus, how they're going to play in the game. And to me, sometimes if you're an underdog, you have a little bit more to prove."

Bob Stoops said Blake Bell and redshirt freshman Trevor Knight "know how we intend to play them."

"They've practiced really well, just like they have through the year," Stoops said. "They're very supportive of one another, so that's something we'll talk to them about going into the game. Hopefully (not publicly naming a starter) has made (Alabama) have to work a bigger package on what we like to do with each guy."